Chuqui Coppermine

On Sunday night there was a circus in town. It didn´t start till 10pm. A little strange I thought for a school night. Although this is South America where it is not unreasonable to eat dinner at 11pm. My first clue that there was somethng not quite right was the fact that there were no children at the circus. My second was that, there wasn´t actually a ring, just a stage. There didn´t appear to be any animals either. Turns out it was a gay and transvestite Chilean Circus. They use the term circus loosely here. There were clowns but apart from that it was like watching a bad variety show. I saw gay tango, crude gay clowns, and many performances from women with hairy legs. It was an experience. My only mistake was not buying the DVD so that you all could appreciate it too.

I wanted to get my hair done in preparation for the bday. While there were hair dressers in Calama none unfortunately were displaying Loreal signs. When I realised that the salon shampoo they were using resembled something idustrial youd see in the pound shop, I thought better of letting them do my colour. Just a wash and blowdry then. It wasn´t really the salon experience Im used to. I think I was actually in this womans living room. However, we got there in the end, although they haven´t discovered GHD yet.

Went to the biggest open-pit Copper mine in the world which was incredible. Youve never seen anything like the size of it, the size of everything for that matter. The trucks and excavating equipment completely dwarfed me. The mine makes ten thousand Us dollars a minute and it operates 24hrs a day. Luckily for the Chilean government, Pinochet kicked out the American companies in the 70s so they actually get to keep the money from this incredible resource, unlike neighbouring country Bolivia which is being completely exploited. The town nearby had to be completely excavated because of the harmful dust. The government just built the residents a new town a couple of kilometres away and told them they had to move. There are 2 shops open still in the old town for the miners, but apart from that, it is ghost town. So cool to walk around.

Im in San Pedro now which is more on the backpackers route. I was hoping to get a good crew together so that I can party tonight however things are just not going to plan. Bizzarely, hoards of Germans keep befriending me. My gang now consists of 7 Germans, about 2 of whom I actually like and thankfully a Brazilian and a Canadian. They have all invited themselves out with me tonight which isn´t what I want at all. This morning I moved hostel in an attempt to get away from them. I now have half a day to make some new cooler more suitable best friends before tonight.